Saturday, February 10, 2007

The HITS Van (August 2002)

There’s a hilarious photo currently making the rounds via email (currently being 2002). It’s a digital photo of the Steele Communications’ HITS FM mini-van, with the letters HITS painted on the side in big block letters. The photo shows the van at a public event, with the sliding door open and a staffer reaching inside.

What’s so funny about that? Well, the letter S is painted on the window of the sliding door so that, when it opens, the S moves to the front of HIT, creating an entirely new word. An embarrassing situation for the radio station? Not according to John Steele of Steele Communications.

"One of the best things that happened to us was that SHIT van," he laughs. "It got everyone talking about us. We couldn’t buy that kind of publicity. It’s great that everyone has sent it around. We have a promotion on the air now that ‘The shit has hit the van’. We play it a couple of times every hour."

Which leads one to wonder: was this done by design?

"No, it wasn’t intentional," Steele said. "Though it did work in our favour. For that type of format, radio entertainment, it’s not that big a deal."

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Media Commentary & Analysis

A former journalist and managing editor, Geoff Meeker is now an independent communications consultant. He offers insight and analysis on the media scene in Newfoundland and Labrador, with a sprinkling of national and international commentary. This blog was preceded by the award-winning Media Spotlight newspaper column in The Express, which ran from 2002 to 2006. A sampling of columns that remain relevant or interesting can be viewed below, in the archive for February.